Archive for August, 2008

If I could be any Food Network Star, I would definitely be Giada De Laurentiis…I love her, she makes food that looks and taste great and she’s not annoying to watch on TV. When I want to experiment and cook something new, I always look for one of her recipes to make. I don’t know how it is with the rest of the Food Network Stars, but most of her recipes always get 5 star reviews from people and I think that is a testiment to itself why she’s so awesome. Anyway, enough about going on and on about why I love Giada haha. Well, this week I decided to make two of her recipes: Salmon with Lemon, Capers, & Rosemary and Tri-Colore Orzo. Both of these recipes turned out really well and were so simple to make. The total cooking time was about 30 mins for both dishes. The salmon was very easy in terms of cooking and clean-up…basically, you just take your salmon fillet, place it on a sheet of foil, season with salt, pepper, lemon, rosemary, olive oil, marsala wine, and wrap it up into a foil packet and bake! I know the recipe calls for cooking it on a grill pan, but I decided to put it in the oven at 425 degrees for 15min and it came out perfect. While the salmon was baking, I was making the orzo pasta…if you don’t know what orzo pasta is, its basically rice shaped pasta. So, to make the Tri-Colore Orzo, I took the cooked orzo pasta and combined it with the olive oil, dried cherries, arugula, basil, pine nuts, lemon juice, salt/pepper, and feta cheese (I couldn’t find the ricotta insalata cheese the recipe called for at the grocery store) into a large bowl. The orzo pasta paired really nicely with the salmon and the combination of these two recipes made for a delicious light and healthy dinner. One thing I should mention is that you can eat the orzo pasta hot or cold…its great both ways, and the combination of the cherries, pine nuts, basil, arugula, and cheese makes this dish very addicting. I love it.

Tri-Colore Orzo and Salmon Packets

This picture was taken just before I was about to place the bowl on the dinner table and it slipped out of my hands and there was orzo pasta everywhere…yea I’m very clumsy and I make myself laugh hahaha. An incident like this just reminds myself why I can’t have my own cooking show…it would be a DIASTER. Luckily, I made a lot of orzo pasta, so there was enough left for dinner haha.

Salmon with Lemon, Capers, and Rosemary – So so good! Make sure you use marsala wine, I think it really makes this dish tasty.

Giada – I just had to post this up…I found it and this totally cracks me up…yes, it is a bit scary because its reminesent of Carrie, but I still love it anyway haha.

I’ve been getting some complaints that I need to blog more…so here you go. I found these pictures of amazingly over the top decorated cupcakes on Flickr. I never knew such cupcakes existed. In my world, cupcakes with frosting and a few sprinkles on top are good enough for me, but these guys go way beyond my imagination and unfortunately way beyond my skill level as well. If I ever received or made a cupcake this nice, I really don’t think I’d be able to get myself to eat it.

GarlicZoom- I have a garlic press and it never seems to work well because the garlic just gets stuck and doesn’t squeeze out those tiny holes well, but this wheelie seems like it would be a great alternate. Just pop a clove in and wheel it around like you would with hot wheels. Here’s the demo.

VeggieChop- I don’t have a veggie chopper yet, but this one seems cool because it doesn’t require any electricity or batteries…all you have to do is pull the handle. It’s sort of like cranking up your lawn mower or chainsaw…but then again I’ve never done either so I probably don’t know what I’m talking about haha. Here’s the video demo for the VeggieChop incase I’m confusing you guys.

Emulstir- This gadget I definitely want. I’ve been meaning to make my own vinaigrette salad dressing at home, but I always opted not to because I never had any empty bottles to store it in for future use, but now this gadget lets me make it and store it in one! There’s no demo video for this gadget, but basically you put your ingredients in the bottle, press down the lever and the green stick inside stirs it all up for you.